


That time Bill Tanner needed the SAS

by Attasee



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Missing Persons, No Smut, Secret Intelligence Service | MI6, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 22:02:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11170956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Attasee/pseuds/Attasee
Summary: Bill's in a panicEve's missingM's shirt is ruined.Q and 007 are unhelpful.





	That time Bill Tanner needed the SAS

Bill Tanner was cold.

He was cold and something was missing that should have been there.

Something warm and soft.

Something that he loved.

When he reached across the large king size bed rather than Eve’s warm body he found nothing.

“Eve?” he said quietly knowing there would be no answer.

Opening his eyes he pulled back the sheets and swung his legs out of the bed.

Yep.

Eve was gone. And it was obvious that all evidence of her had gone too. Scanning the room Bill noted that all the clothes she had carefully folded up the night before were gone, and the small porcelain cat shaped dish he had put on the bedside table was empty of jewelry.

“Eve?” Bill repeated her name again.

Nothing.

No reply.

He didn’t find her in the kitchen, or the sitting room either. And the hallway was as empty of her shoes and the twenty thousand bags for life she insisted on carting about with her as it could be.

“Eve?”

Nothing.

No reply.

With each empty room Bill found his heart broke a little. By the time he had checked the unused kitchen for notes, called her phone ten times and searched for anything that could give him a clue as to where his girl was and found nothing, he was bordering on the panicky.

He even looked behind the sofa because well…just because.

His journey into work was no better either. Frustrated and feeling more unsettled as the minutes passed, Bill even looked in the boot of his car.

Nothing.

Not a sign.

He found himself clutching at his chest more than once as he hastily ran to the end of the road to grab the tube – something that he rarely did nowadays. There, he tried to hide the fact he was mentally listing all the things he needed to do to organise a full on missing persons search.

Helicopters.

Satellite.

Any available Double 0’s.

The fact that his signal was rubbish and he couldn’t call/text it all into MI6 almost finished him off.

Why hadn’t he driven in?

Why hadn't he ordered a car?

Why was he wasting his time running for the tube?

 _Where_ was his girl?

In fact when Bill finally stepped onto the platform at Vauxhall and used his passkey to slip through a hidden door to utilise the well-trodden underground link corridor between the station and MI6, he was positively vibrating with tension.

“Morning Sir,” a far too smiley security guard said as Bill quickly approached the metal detector.

“Morning.” Bill snapped back. He didn’t mean to, he wasn’t a violent man but for Christ sake, but right at that moment he had no time for smiles and laughter. He needed to move. He needed to get on the phone. He needed the SAS. He needed to find her.

“Everything okay Sir?”

Bill grunted in reply. “It’s…”

“I suggest flowers Sir. It’s always worked with my misses.”

“It’s..? What?”

“Flowers… or shoes. I think Miss Moneypenny’s a shoe girl meself.”

“Right,” Bill replied drawing out the word. “Shoes?”

“Shoes.”

“Have a good day Sir.”

“I will. Yes….”

 

“Tanner, my office now. Come in via the side door.” Bill didn’t even manage to get his coat off, call in the Navy or have a chance to process the conversation with Daz the security guard when the sound of M’s voice ricocheted down the corridor.

“Yes Sir.”

Throwing his coat over his chair, and huffing Bill straightened his tie and suit jacket and made his way  towards the 2nd entrance M had had installed to his office after the explosion a few years earlier.

Was M using this entrance kept him away from where Eve should be?

Did M know where she was?

Was she injured?

Could he walk any faster?

Could he…

“What did you do?” The question came at him quicker than a bullet.

“Pardon…Sir…?” Bill looked around the room at the trio of men stood facing him. “007? Q?”

“To Moneypenny. What did you do?” This time it was Q with the rapid fire questions.

“I… what?”

“She’s come into work this morning looking like hell. Crying. Tears. Snot. She’s a trained field operative for god’s sake Tanner, although at the moment you’d be lucky to get anything sensible out of her, she’s a blubbering wreck.”

“Sir… she’s here?” Bill's head shot up. His girl was here and she was upset. "I… I haven’t done anything as far as I am aware… when I woke up, Eve was gone.”

“Gone?”

Bill nodded. “She was gone. The whole flat… it was like she had cleared everything out and disappeared.”

“And you say you’ve not had an argument?” M asked.

Bill shook his head.

“…or a fall out.”

“I think they are the same thing James.”

Bill ignored Q and answered 007’s question. “No. Neither.”

“Then what the dickens is up with my Executive Assistant Tanner?”

“I don’t know…” He didn’t. He really didn’t. “Is she really here?”

Q shook his head. “Not here. She’s with R. They tried to get me to go with them but you know I’m not good with high expressed emotion unless it’s 007’s.”

“I think I need to see her.”

“I’ll call R.”

“No Q, leave it, please. I don’t want her running away from me again.”

 

The walk down to Q Branch was a long one with Bill preferring to take the stairs rather than get there in a rush by using the lifts. This way he had time gird his loins for he hoped wouldn’t be an verbal onslaught.

When he reached Q Branch it was still quiet, with the only light in the vast space coming out of R’s small office in the corner.

“Right Bill, this is it,” Bill said as he pushed open the office door.

She was alone - but Bill thought even with puffy eyes and a snotty nose she still looked beautiful. “Eve baby, what’s up?”

The question bought a snort, a wail and then more tears. Lots of them.  _Christ._   It hadn't crossed his mind until that point that she might not want him. "Eve, why did you leave this morning?”

“I don’t know.” Eve whispered.

“You don’t know?”

Another snort. “I was so angry with you.”

“You were?”

“Yes.”

“Why…?”

“Because… because I woke up and I’d had a dream and you’d made me so mad and angry and I couldn’t look at you.”

Bill raised his eye brows. “We argued in your dream?”

Eve nodded.

“And we fell out?”

She nodded again.

“You dreamt we had an argument and I annoyed you so much that you packed your bags, left the house and now you’re not speaking to me?”

“…something like that yes.”

“Oh baby, come here.”

“It’s stupid, I know.”

Bill chuckled pulling her body against his. “It is a little. You know it wasn't real though don't you?”

“It felt real. I was so angry with you and you were so stubborn.”

“It sounds like you really thought it had happened.”

“It was awful. I don’t want to argue with you Bill.”

Bill smiled nervously. “I thought you’d left me Eve,” he replied his voice cracking as he did so. “I thought you’d gone for good. I was so scared when I woke up and saw you’d gone. I thought you'd changed your mind about us.”

Eve sobbed even louder at that. “Nevvvver. I had no key… I locked myself out…”

Bill tutted softly and shook his head. “Did you tell everyone you were upset with me?”

“Just R, M and Q who probably told Bond.”

“And Daz on security.”

“And maybe Daz on security," he could hear her voice wobble as she replied. "M is really pissed off isn’t he, I think I ruined his shirt.”

“Oh baby.” Bill pulled Eve against him closing the final few inches between them and wrapping his arms around her body. She felt so good against him. Perfect even.  It was…“I think M can stew for a little longer,” he whispered before dropping a light kiss to her forehead. "I love you."

“Oh Billy, you…I love you too.”

“No more dream arguments right?”

“No.”

“Although apparently I’m to buy you expensive shoes when we argue for real though.”

“Shoes?”

“Words of wisdom from Daz on security,” Bill answered with a chuckle.

“Shoes would be…”

“Expensive? How about a key to my place instead?”

“Bill…”

“Then you can let yourself back in and bollock right there and then when you have another dream like that, okay?” Bill  said feeling Eve’s body sag against his and her head nod slowly.

“And anyway darling, I don’t even know your shoe size…”

 


End file.
